In The Halls of Good King Arthur
by cowsquashmelon
Summary: When the heat of battle cools and chaos fades to the aching hollowness of loss, Camelot is born and Galahad finds his way. GalahadOC. Other knights featured.


A/N: This one's a bit slow, but it will pick up after this. Reviews and constructive criticism are welcome. Flames will be handed off to my trusty fire eating circus performer, Bill.

* * *

Niall had grown old watching the young die, and he was tired of it.

The days following the battle against the Saxons brought a wave of madness to the healing chambers that he had never seen before. The flow of broken bodies seemed never to stop; there had been so many wounded and so much blood that he had almost been overwhelmed. He was only one man, after all, and those who studied under him knew only so much. But he carried on, just as he had for every one of his many years, and did what he could. Most had died within a few days, their injuries so severe that all he could do was make them comfortable in their final hours. Others had been better off. They had recovered quickly, and had been able to go off on their own with simple warnings to rest and take care. The young woad woman to whom he tended now was not so lucky.

He wiped a sheet of sweat from her fevered brow, wondering that she still lived. The day she had arrived he had told her only visitor (another woad girl—Gwen? Gwyneth?) that she would likely be gone within hours. That had been a week ago, and that girl (gods be damned, what was her name?) had come back almost every day since, and every day as she sat at her friend's bedside, she would ask him for news. His answer was always the same.

"Your friend is strong, my dear, but I just don't know."

And he didn't know, but he dared not hope. His withered hands had sewn too many wounds and mixed too many remedies for such folly.

The girl whimpered as he took a cool cloth from a bowl of water and placed it on her burning forehead. He rose from his chair, groaning quietly at the ache in his joints. He was no longer a young man, as such pains often reminded him, and the activity of the last few days was beginning to to take a toll on him.

Resting the bowl in its place on a shelf opposite the woad girl's bed, Niall cast a practiced eye over the rest of the room. Dover, his least skilled but most enthusiastic apprentice, struggled to remove the bandages from the arm of one of the healthier patients. The gangly, floppy haired youth had such potential, Niall knew, but his clumsiness and nervous countenance meant that he spent more time cleaning spilled medicinal ingredients than actually tending to patients. His current victim, a fierce looking woad, winced with every mumbled apology from his caretaker. He looked about ready to kill the boy.

Niall sighed, and with a shake of his head moved on to yet another hopeless case. At a bed by one of the room's only windows, a man, older than Dover but young still, sat watching the rise and fall of a sleeping patient's chest.

Galahad had hardly left Gawain's side since he had stumbled in, supporting the dead weight of his injured friend. He would leave only on orders from Arthur, or when Bors clamored in, giving the young man a well meant slap to the back of the head and some pointed words about getting some food and some sleep before it was he who was confined to a bed. The older knight knew that Gawain would be well again, given some time and some rest. Galahad knew it too, but it seemed he had a harder time accepting it. He'd been a cheerless and constant presence in the ward all that time, and Niall, nurturer that he was, had begun to worry. Galahad was young still, and he had lost so much in his fifteen years at the wall. The impending loss of his closest and oldest companion, even if it was only imagined, would be a heavy weight to bare.

"Get out of my infirmary. Sir Gawain will be healthy as a horse soon enough."

Niall clapped a hand on the young knight's shoulder, providing reassurance in the only way he could. Galahad looked up at him, smiling tiredly.

"I know."

It was all he said. It was all he ever said when given such reassurances. The younger man made no move to leave, and Niall again shook his head, throwing in an eye roll for good measure. It was useless, it seemed, to try to move a Sarmatian knight.

"Try to get some sleep, lad. We all need it from time to time."

And with that Niall found himself yawning.

"Myself included, it seems." He said to himself as he turned to the door. "These old bones need a nap."

"Dover!"

The boy started at the words as Niall shouted them over his shoulder. The woad he was still tending to muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Dammit, boy!" as he pulled his injured arm away from its tormentor.

"I'm off for a sleep. Wake me if anything changes, and do try not to kill anyone while I'm gone."

Dover's face paled dramatically as he watched the white haired healer head for the door, and the words earned a bark of a laugh from Galahad, which in turn brought a smile to Niall's face. The young knight would be alright.

* * *

By the time Niall had closed the heavy wooden door behind him, Galahad was once again lost in his own thoughts. He had never been a patient man. Youth, or what was left of it, and a life spent in constant motion had stripped him of that quality. Now though, he found that he did not mind waiting so very much. The quiet peace of the healer's ward, and the steady breathing of his sleeping friend_— still alive—_ were a welcome change from the staggering grief and chaos of the preceding days.

On the first calm night after the battle, after the villagers had returned and Bors had dragged him bodily away from Gawain's sleeping form (_He's fine, you miserable whelp! Get some bloody sleep before _I _put_ you_ in one a' them beds!), _Galahad had drank himself into a stupor. Alone in his room, he swallowed his weight in alcohol, grieving the only way he knew how as he carved each new name into his memory in bloody, jagged letters. Dagonet. Tristan. Lancelot. Brothers all and gone forever.

In his drunken philosophizing, he had wondered if it had all been worth it. If this island, this floating prison, was worth the lives of those he loved. He had no answer. But Arthur was his brother too, and they had fought for him. That had been their choice, and his. _That_ was worth the loss. _Brotherhood. _The names of his fallen friends would never leave him, but he knew from experience that the sharp twist of pain he felt at the thought or mention of them would fade over time to a hollow ache. They would be with him always, but he would move on, carrying their voices in the back of his mind like ghosts. Better now to focus on the living._  
_

Gawain snorted lightly in his sleep, and Galahad found himself smiling despite it all. He had known from the beginning that his friend would be alright, but he was only now beginning to believe it. The initial panic had faded as the days went by, but when Gawain had first collapsed, the adrenaline of battle finally wearing off some hours after the Saxons were defeated, the fear had nearly crippled him. What would become of him if he ever truly lost Gawain, he could not fathom. He had lost so many brothers already, but Gawain was something else entirely—an extension of himself without whom he could never truly be whole.

But Gawain would be fine. He just had to keep reminding himself that Gawain would be fine.

"Don't you ever leave?"

For all the attention he had been paying his friend, Galahad really should have noticed when his eyes flickered open and focused on him. Perhaps he did need the sleep that Niall had suggested.

"He rarely leaves your side, even when you sleep. You are lucky to have such a friend, Sir Gawain."

Galahad's head snapped around to the source of the voice. He had not heard the thud of the door, nor the sound of Guinevere's footsteps in the quiet room. He decided that a good, long sleep was definitely in his future, even as he gave the woad woman a tired smile, relaxing as he realized as his surprise faded.

"I've been telling him that for years."

She gave the young knight a bright smile of her own before turning to his friend.

"And how are you feeling today, Gawain?"

"Tired," he replied. "Mostly of this one." Gawain lazily kicked out his foot to nudge Galahad's knee.

"Ow!"

The complaint was distinctly unknightly, but Galahad was simply too tired to care. Guinevere smiled kindly, shaking her head at them both before turning to walk towards the young woman across the room, seating herself at the bedside.

"How is she?" Gawain asked, groaning as he struggled to pull himself into a sitting position. Galahad rushed forward to help, but his efforts were rebuffed with a shove and an irritated furrowing of his friend's brow.

"Leave the mothering to Vanora, would you?" Gawain said, his teeth clenched with the effort it took him to move.

"You'd do the same, were the roles reversed."

"Were the roles reversed," The older knight replied, having finally settled against the wall. "You'd be asking me when the last time I'd slept or eaten was." Gawain said pointedly.

Galahad looked away, muttering.

"What's that?" Gawain asked, grinning knowingly.

Galahad glared.

"I said _who's the mother hen now? _And I'm not very well going to leave now that you've woken up." He said, crossing his arms almost petulantly. "For all the time I've spent watching your boring carcass, I deserve some entertainment."

"Alright then," Gawain returned. "If you're so desperate for conversation, answer my question."

Galahad furrowed his brow, confused.

"What question?"

The roll of Gawain's eyes spoke volumes so that he didn't have to: _You really are an idiot._

"The girl," He replied, nodding towards the cot on the other side of the room. "How is she?"

Galahad turned to look behind him. Guinevere still sat at her bedside, blocking any view he might have had of the woman's face. He watched as her hand-- so lethal on the battlefield-- reached out gently to dip a cloth into the bowl of water she had retrieved from a shelf. She reached forward, presumably to lay the cloth across her friend's forehead. He hadn't given much thought to the injured woad she tended to, but he found himself wishing now that he had. He was not, he realized with a strange twist in his stomach, the only one afraid of losing something.

"I don't know."

Their conversation did not last much longer after that. Gawain, still exhausted, soon fell back into a calm sleep. Not before demanding that the younger knight leave to get some sleep of his own as soon as he drifted off, of course. Galahad had yet to move, though his friend's eyes had shut some twenty minutes ago. He rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward to run a hand over his tired eyes. Finally resigned to leave, he began to rise. Before he could move too far though, a noise behind him caught his attention, and he turned, still seated.

The woad girl had begun to whimper in her sleep, her arms and legs thrashing as though fighting some invisible foe. He rose, moving to help a distressed Guinevere, who could not quite contain her friend's outburst. The woman's movements were growing more violent, and Guinevere finally turned to call out to Dover, who stood in a corner of the room, as far from all three of the patients as he could possibly be.

"Boy!"

Her voice was sharp, almost angry, but Galahad did not hear it. She had moved enough for him to finally lay eyes on the woman, and he froze where he stood. His blood ran cold, and the world dropped out from beneath his feet. He knew nothing but one face and one word._  
_

_Róisín._


End file.
